Economy in Brief: 2015

These foreign trade figures add to the preliminary numbers released one week ago by including trade in services and data by country. The U.S. foreign trade deficit in goods and services during September declined to $40.8 billion [...]

The PMI total indices add new observations on services to the revised manufacturing readings issued earlier this week. The new total private sector index is the result. We see a slight downward revision to the EMU overall gauge and to [...]

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Composite Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Business recovered to 59.1 during October after an unrevised September decline to 56.9. Consensus expectations had been for 56.5 in the Action [...]

The ADP/Moody's National Employment Report indicated that nonfarm private sector payrolls increased 182,000 during October after a 190,000 September rise, revised from 200,000. The latest was firmer than expectations for a 178,000 [...]

Total sales of light vehicles edged 0.4% higher during October to 18.24 million units (SAAR). The gain followed a total increase of 6.9% during the prior three months and left sales 10.0% higher than one year ago. Total unit sales [...]

New orders in the manufacturing sector fell 1.0% during September (-7.1% y/y) following a revised 2.1% August decline. The drop roughly matched expectations in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. It was led by a 1.2% decline (-3.5% [...]

Oil prices crashed late in 2014 and have created a sort of chaos in world markets ever since. The crash in the oil price was a combination of things involving slower growth in China and in the rest of the world as well as the impact [...]

Gasoline prices at the pump slipped last week to $2.22 per gallon, off just a penny from the prior week. While prices were down 25.7% y/y, they were 8.8% above the January low of $2.04. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for [...]